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The Best Practices to a Web Host for Efficient Server and Customer Management
Generating a new customer is quite fast and easy, when compared to keeping them satisfied and delighted. To ensure that your customers will stay with you for life, you need to start planning from the very beginning. The challenge is to keep them increasingly satisfied as days go by. There are a variety of aspects that should be taken care of and through this article, I intend to take you through some basic and Simple Steps for Efficient Server and Customer Management.
Pre-Sales
Always, give only the right information to your prospective clients. It is recommended that you give an overview of the server configuration / settings. If you have any security restrictions, make sure that you highlight these in your website. During the pre-sales communication, convey all the important information to your prospective clients so that there are no worries for them, after sign-up.
Sign-Ups
Remember, the first impression is the best impression!
Make your sign-ups as quick as possible. Customers will not like to wait too long, or undergo tedious processes for signing up a new account. Put yourself in the shoes of the customer. No one would enjoy too much time and formality for purchasing things. Always make sure that you have proper systems in place to help customers have a smooth sign-up.
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Backups are like life-jackets! When you wear it, you may feel uncomfortable, but without it, you could be dead! |
Setup
Help your customers set up their account on your server. Ensure that you provide enough FAQs and tutorials. This way, they will be able to do almost everything by themselves. Have your support team always ready to help new customers with setting up their accounts. Most people write reviews, good or bad, based on their initial experiences with the host.
Maintenance
Have an efficient and competent support team to manage your servers well. Have Pro-active Server Management and a good monitoring system in place, so that you would be the first person to know if there is any problem with your servers, and not your customers. Perform daily server checks to ensure that the server is in perfect health. Scheduled hardware checks are also recommended if feasible.
Let me list a few parameters that should be monitored during the routine checks:
- Server Load
- Disk Usage
- CPU / Memory Usage
- Webserver / DB Server Performance
- Processes running on the server
- Any traces of spamming to or from the server
Be well aware of the security updates and have all the software on the server upgraded to the latest stable version. Always schedule the maintenance checks, and make sure that the customers are informed well in advance. Update the maintenance reports to the customer. This will give them the feeling of satisfaction that their web host is taking good care of their servers.
Support
Support is the most important aspect as far as a web host is concerned. Have a technically sound support team, with good communication skills and customer focus. Make it a point to provide good responses and resolution times for your customers and also make sure that you keep them. The support team should be able to give pro-active suggestions to all customer queries. This helps a lot to make them feel that you care for their business as much as they do!
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Always make sure that you have proper systems in place to help customers have a smooth sign-up. |
Backup
Backups are like life-jackets! When you wear it, you may feel uncomfortable, but without it, you could be dead! Similarly backups might not look important to you, because they are not being used on a daily basis. But when a requirement arises, that would be the most urgent situation and when you have up-to-date backups, you make your customer feel relieved. The same becomes applicable for us also, when something goes wrong with the server. Have local and remote backups available so that you have enough options ready.
Terminations
Account Terminations are almost as important as account sign ups. Have proper procedures to handle account terminations. Don’t let the contents and backups for old accounts consume too much of your server space. Have a policy in place to check the server files at frequent intervals and remove old backups and contents on a regular basis.
These are the basic practices that every web host should look into for Efficient Server and Customer Management. Manage your server well and along with this, keep your customers updated with all the changes through proper communication. These can help you take a long way towards changing your trial period customer into life long customers.
About the Author :
Priya Agni has been working with Bobcares for over five years and she is an expert in Control panels and Operating systems used in the Web Hosting industry. Priya is specialized into remotely managing Datacenters. She brings in a lot of flexibility into the company, with her knowledge in various areas of the Hosting industry. Priya is a great stage performer and during her free hours, she loves to dance and plays with her daughter.
Plus
Very much helpful enter but there are some place where I resolve not agree. But comprehensive its altogether good.
Kommentar by Plus — September 2, 2009 @ 6:47 am